West Hartford Settles Lawsuit Over Alleged 2022 School Program Sexual Assaults

WEST HARTFORD, CT — The town has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that a child was sexually assaulted by a high school student volunteer during a 2022 English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) summer program at Florence E. Smith STEM School.

The West Hartford Town Council voted unanimously, 7-0, on June 23 to approve the settlement.

Court documents filed the following day show the Town of West Hartford, the West Hartford Board of Education, and five current or former school employees accepted the plaintiff's offer to resolve the case for $1.5 million.

The defendants accepting the settlement are the Town of West Hartford, the West Hartford Board of Education, former Florence E. Smith STEM School Principal Teresa Giolito, ESOL Program Coordinator Ryan Cronin, and teachers Janet Hay, Margaret Haeflich, and Kimberly McCarthy.

The acceptance was filed June 24 in Hartford Superior Court.

The lawsuit, filed in June 2024, alleges that a high school student volunteer sexually assaulted an elementary school student on three occasions between June 27 and July 15, 2022, while volunteering in the ESOL summer program.

The plaintiff, identified as Jane Doe, brought the lawsuit through her mother using pseudonyms to protect the child's identity.

The complaint alleged town and school officials knew or should have known the volunteer posed a risk to children, but failed to adequately supervise students and volunteers, enforce school policies, investigate warning signs, or comply with Connecticut's mandatory reporting requirements.

The lawsuit also alleged officials failed to provide a safe learning environment and interfered with the subsequent police investigation.

The town and school district denied liability by defending the case, and the settlement documents do not include any admission of wrongdoing.

The settlement resolves claims against the town, the West Hartford Board of Education, and the individual school employees.

Court records indicate the claims against the volunteer and his mother were not parties to the settlement acceptance filed on June 24.

The settlement stems from an offer of compromise filed by the plaintiff on June 2, 2026, proposing that the municipal defendants resolve the litigation for $1.5 million.

The defendants formally accepted that offer on June 24.

Other court filings submitted before the settlement included the plaintiff's disclosure of West Hartford Superintendent of Schools Dr. Andrew Morrow as a non-retained expert witness.

According to that filing, Morrow was expected to testify regarding the volunteer's disciplinary history, the district's expulsion process and records related to his Sept. 2022 expulsion following allegations that the volunteer sexually assaulted an 8-year-old child while serving as a volunteer in the summer program.

The disclosure states the volunteer and his parents entered into a stipulated expulsion agreement in which they did not contest that sufficient evidence existed to establish an expellable offense under district policy and state law.

Those statements were made in the plaintiff's expert disclosure and were not tested at trial because the case settled before trial.

The lawsuit had sought damages for the child's alleged emotional and psychological injuries and for medical expenses incurred by her mother.

For the minutes of the June 23 West Hartford Town Council meeting, click on this link.